Ahh, white, the color of good protagonists and heroes... WRONG!
The Color Pie of Magic assigns each color certain beliefs and principles, but doesn't label them as good or evil. While white, the color of order and altruism, often gets to be the hero by default (Mercadian Masques rebels wouldn't pass as monowhite today), there have been white villains ever since The Dark came out back in 1994.
For a villain to remain monowhite, their motivation has to be, in their mind, helping others. By any means necessary. As
Akroma
said: "No Rest. No Mercy. No Matter What."
Akroma is an example of a popular branch of white villains - angels. As artificial creatures, angels will follow their programming. They exist to serve others to their bitter ends. Akroma was an instrument of revenge.
Radiant
and
Avacyn
protectors of purity - both slaughtering those they swore to protect after their corruption.
Corruption is after all an easy way to turn a hero into a villain. Was
Nahiri
always prone to genociding a whole plane in revenge or did she have to become
red
first after hundreds of years spent in
Helvault
next to
Griseldad
?
Kirtar
used to be an arrogant prick but only became a villain due to the influence of
Mirari.
The vampire
Legion
of Ixalan has some white specimen but it's hard to say how much pillagy their conquistadoring would be without association to their black counterparts. The Lunarch Council of the Church of Avacyn on Innistrad was in thrall of
Ormendahl.
Speaking of churches, religious fanatics are yet another type of white villains. They will save your soul with fire and brimstone if necessary. "The Hand of Justice will come to cleanse the world if we are true." as summed up nicely by
Oliver Farrel
during Fallen Empires.
The Church
that preceded the Farrelites in The Dark checked all the boxes that a properly backward medieval
witch hunt
calls for, what with their
pitchfork-bearing
lynch mobs.
And then there are two more -
Konda
and
Heliod,
the two big white villains. Konda wanted eternal peace and so he started a supra-world war with literal gods. He became immortal, which turned out badly after he was smashed into millions of pieces. He's probably still out there somewhere, alive. Probably very painful. And Heliod? That chief god-cum-fratbro was so jelly he KILLED ELSPETH.
Gameplay Show
Since our creature suite has to include only on-theme, often underpowered, cards like
Radiant
, we're going in the token direction, amassing minions to serve our dastardly villains (we're not actually
amassing
anything since all the white zombies from Amonket apparently translate to zero white amass cards). Slow and mid-rangy,
we
squeeze
value
from
our lands
and
artifacts
or
tokens
until we wrath the board, make some tokens, and hope a well-summoned
Elesh Norn
can push through the damage we need.
Speaking of Ms Norn, she's a prime commander for my monowhite favorite -
Urborg
+
Kormus Bell.
With Norn, this is a one-sided
Armageddon.
Urborg is useful even without the Bell since we can use it to accuse our enemies of witchcraft to rile up our
mobs.
Just keep in mind that baseless accusation can cut both ways, as
karma
is a bitch. Such is the value of Urborg and the Bell that we
pack
many
ways
to
get
our
hands on them.
If a single opponent starts to get out of hand, we declare
peacefully
"
Obey!
" and all shall be well again.
And no one can say no to
racking
into a
Nicky B worship.
E.W.L (Evil White List) Show
11th
Akroma
(Onslaught) - you can't really blame someone too much for killing a lot of people when they are literally created as an "angel of wrath".
10th
The Legion
(Ixalan) - just frame the black vampires for everything
9th
Avacyn
(Innistrad) - blame it all on Nahiri
8th
Radiant
(Urza's) - blame it all on Phyrexians; smaller fan base compared to Avacyn
7th
Kirtar
(Odyssey) - blame it all on Mirari; was also naturally an arrogant prick
6th
The Church
(The Dark) - a baseline for prickery
5th
Farrelites
(Fallen Empires) - edges The Church since Oliver Farrel was also a "nice guy" (RIP Tymolin)
4th
Nahiri
(Zendikar) - while you can blame her planeciding Innistrad on red (and Sorin), it was still a planecide by freakin'
Emrakul
3rd
Elesh Norn
(New Phyrexia) - hard to tell how much free will a born Phyrexian possesses but she did A LOT of bad stuff nonetheless
2nd
Heliod
(Theros) - HE KILLED ELSPETH
1st
Takeshi Konda
(Kamigawa) - single-handedly starting a world war in promise of a thousand-year reich... hmmm...
